Milestone Birthday: A Special Birthday

on time—at least from His perspective. According to His celestial watch, it was in the exact fullness of time for Him to send forth His Son to redeem the world. All of history had been building toward this redemptive rendezvous since before time began (Revelation 13:8). And this divine invasion would forever split time. It would divide human history in two, between BC and AD. Christmas would give all of life a new direction!

From the very first moment of creation, Christmas was an absolute certainty. Man’s primal sin and fall from a state of spiritual innocence made Christmas a redemptive necessity. From God’s perspective, human history had been moving in a straight line: from the Garden of Eden to the manger of Bethlehem, from Adam and Eve to Joseph and Mary, and from the transcendent Creator to “Immanuel . . . God with us” (Matthew 1:23).

It is impossible to separate the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes from the Son of Man who was crucified, wrapped in a burial shroud, and laid in a tomb. And just as Jesus the Baby did not remain in the manger of Bethlehem, Jesus the Christ did not remain in the tomb outside Jerusalem. Redemption was secured by the resurrection. The resurrection was the next to last chapter in the Christmas narrative that will finally be consummated with the events of the Second Advent of Christ. Then His redemption will be followed by the restoration of Creation when God will make all things new (Revelation 21:5).

The great message of Christmas is that the sovereign eternal God not only created time, He entered into it in order to redeem it by the birth, life, death, and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. And He is redemptively working from within time for our blessing and benefit. That’s what Christmas is really all about!

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You are now very old, and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over. Joshua 13:1

Each year of life is an incredible gift of grace. But one year was especially sobering for me, partly because I turned the big 6-0. That was a significant chronological milestone for me since my own father died at 59, which was at the time of my senior year in college. As a result of his relatively early death, as preachers we never had the opportunity of ministering together as adults. He obviously never lived to see this ministry. Also, he never lived to meet Patt, which was a great disappointment to both of us. Ironically, Dad died in Canton, NC, on the night of Patt’s and my first date in Kentucky, where we were in our last year of college. So Dad obviously never knew my children or grandchildren.

But by God’s grace I have lived to see each of my children grow up, accept Christ, be baptized, complete high school and college, travel and minister overseas with me, have their hearts for the poor and needy grow, and become Great Commission Christians with a passion for missions. I have also had the joy of marrying each of them to their spouses and seeing them start their own families.

To celebrate this milestone birthday, Patt and I, along with a small group of ministry friends, went to Tanzania in East Africa for what we called our “Caleb Climb.” We attempted to climb the famous Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest freestanding mountain in the world at 19,335 feet. Many people thought I had lost my mind to attempt this mountain climb at 60. But Caleb in the Old Testament was my inspiration. He was 80 years old when he asked God, “Now give me this hill country” (Joshua 14:12). If he could ask God for a mountain at 80, I could boldly ask God for Mount Kilimanjaro at 60!

Another good biblical example is Joshua. “When Joshua had

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